Teetering
by tielan
Summary: Someone is sending Teyla letters. [Teyla romance]


NOTES: Written for the chocfic September Love-A-Thon for characters of colour. My prompt was "Stargate: Atlantis: talking and communication." I haven't specified the pairing because it's about the development of a relationship and I didn't want to spring the surprise too soon.

**Teetering  
**

"If you will wait for me to get my_ bantos_..." Teyla says, stepping into her room.

"Careful," says Laura, grabbing Teyla's arm as she slid on the envelope lying just inside the door. "You've got mail," she intones, reaching for the cream-coloured envelope.

Fine paper slides beneath Teyla's fingers as she opens it. The inked message is plain and bold.

_I've been admiring you for a while, but I'm not game to say anything. I think you're beautiful._

She picks out the words slowly, taking care in reading the Lantean.

Her cheeks are flushed when she folds it closed again.

--

Once again, the envelope is tucked beneath the door, pale against the rich blue floor.

_I'm sorry about Charin's death. You're being strong, but I still wish I could be there for you. _

Pain lodges in her throat once again, a grief Teyla thought past and dealt with these last five days. While re-establishing her people on the mainland, she buried it deep inside.

The world is colder, wearier after her mentor's death. And yet, pleasure kindles like a fire's warmth: amidst his - or her - own concerns, someone has noticed and cared.

_I wish I could be there for you._

--

Four words are all this letter contains; not words of romance, nor of comfort, yet comforting.

_You're not like him._

With the marks of Michael's bindings still fading from her wrists and the memory of his anger at what was done to him, Teyla wonders how her unknown correspondant knew.

She spoke of it to no-one, not her team-mates, not Carson, not Dr. Heightmeyer. The sense, when she looked at Michael, that she was seeing herself - what she might have been. She dreamed, again, of being a Wraith when they brought him to the city.

Four words of denial.

--

The material is heavy in her hands as she lifts it from brown paper, rich beyond the weave of fabrics commonly available in Pegasus.

_I notice you make your own clothing - hope you can use this. If not, well, you can always drape it over something._

Teyla is a little surprised at the gift. Until now, her 'secret admirer' - as Laura teasingly terms it - has been content to admire and send notes of admiration.

It is good fabric, yet beautiful - a fine gift, and a thoughtful one.

She cannot conceive who among the Lanteans would send her such a gift.

--

"Cadman says you've an admirer," John says one day after _bantos_ work.

Irritation rises briefly - irritation with Laura, with John. It was not Laura's secret to reveal. It is not their concern, but hers.

"Yes."

"Want me to find out who?"

Teyla sets her towel aside. "No."

"You're not curious?"

"He does not wish to be known."

"And you don't have any... suspicions?" He regards her with a questioning gaze.

She hesitates; should she tell him? "I believe it is one of the marines from the _Daedelus_." The letters always arrive when the _Daedelus_ is 'in town'.

John has an odd expression as he leans his shoulder against the wall, dark brows arching. "Got a crush?"

"I..." Teyla does not know whether to speak of it or not. There is a marine who smiles at her when she sees him in the corridor, a brief break of solemnity when they pass. She does not know his name and hasn't asked - that is not the way of her people in such matters. And he has not stopped to speak with her.

"You don't have to tell me," John says after a moment.

Teyla meets his gaze steadily. "Then I will not."

--

The boxes from New Athos sit in the middle of her empty room. Teyla contemplates the bare space thoughtfully, arranging furniture in her head.

Her team sleep in bedrolls in the gym, within arm's length of each other. The _Daedelus_ left yesterday after depositing supplies and personnel, and after several marines helped her and Ronon move from New Athos.

She finds the note - no envelope - tucked between boxes.

"Hey," John says, swinging into her room, "Dinner's up."

"I am coming," she replies.

The note is very short. _I missed you._

Teyla feels a warmth not wholly due to the return.

--

"Those are new."

Ronon's observation swings both Rodney and John's heads around to look at the flat meditation cushion in the corner, the spherical candles with their painted patterns arrayed in the candelabra behind it.

"How do you know that's new?" Rodney demands, incredulous, "Do you keep inventory of everything in her room or something?"

Teyla bites back a smile. Ronon shrugs. "Just do."

"They're from him, aren't they?" John asks later.

"Yes."

"What would you do if you found out?"

"I do not think I wish to know," Teyla admits after a moment.

There is sweetness in the anonymity.

--

Teyla unbuttons her vest, unbinds her waistband, strips off her underthings, and leaves all discarded on the floor.

The Lanteans consider it modest to cover the skin, as though the body were a thing of shame. Teyla strokes her oil-scented fingers lightly from the hollow in her throat down her breastbone to her cleft, and does not feel ashamed - only sensual and open.

Perhaps it is the sensuality of this gift, perhaps it is the reaction to being held hostage; but Teyla cups her curves and strokes her depths, and thinks of a lover's hands on her skin

--

She wonders if he knew - if he watches her.

Voyeurism, the Lanteans call it. It does not carry the same connotation to Teyla, who has lived in a community all her life, with few physical boundaries between the private and the public.

It is a small book, in dimension and thickness, but Teyla pores over it until late at night. Men and women in the act of lovemaking, licking and grasping and sucking...

He does not send letters anymore, words too coarse for the intimacy of his message.

Heat pulses in her cleft and Teyla strokes herself to release.

--

Until today, Teyla was content not to know her admirer. She had her people, she had her team-mates, she had her friends among the Lanteans and throughout the planets of the galaxy. If there were moments when she longed for a lover's touch, they were few and easily satisfied.

Tonight, the loneliness of loss is greater than she can bear; and a secret admirer is no comfort.

Teyla goes to John, instead.

He has always included her, counted her as one of his. If she has doubted, he has always assured her in the end.

This time is no different.

If his arms are hesitant to enclose her, his grip is firm as he holds her, letting her draw strength from him. She knows that he does not like this - that he feels uncomfortable, uncertain, afraid that he cannot give what she needs, of being inadequate and insufficient.

No amount of explanation can make a man understand that sometimes it is enough to be there, and that not all things can be made right.

Teyla knows nothing can bring back her people.

Her admirer's letters cannot provide the presence and reassurance she needs.

John holds her and it is enough.

--

Teyla is tired of people touching her.

"Borrow Ronon's gun and shoot the next person who does it," Laura suggests over lunch.

It is a tempting thought. Attractive to Teyla in her present state of mind. "Your people also become pregnant--"

"Not in Atlantis, they don't. You're the first. Just tell the idiots to rack off. " The aroma of coffee rises fragrant between them. "I guess it's not _his_?"

"No." It is the same answer she gave to her team-mates when they asked.

The letter held no recriminations or bitterness, just the scrawled desire: _I wish it were mine._

--

Try as she does, Teyla cannot convince herself that things would have been different if she'd been with her team-mates.

Now the loneliness is complete.

Carson died, Elizabeth left, her people were slaughtered, and her team-mates are gone. Colonel Carter is kind, and Jennifer is a friend, but it is not the same.

She drifts through the city like a ghost, avoiding the pity of others.

In John's room, she brushes her fingers across his guitar strings, flicks her fingers across books he never reads, pauses when a paper box falls over spilling cream-coloured paper to the floor.

_John._

--

Dawn and dusk are the times of best peace in the busy city. This evening, Teyla inhales the crisp salt of the air, calms her mind, and moves through the stretch again.

Her flexibility is coming back, but she feels the pull of muscles overtaxed as she shifts her balance from one foot to the other. The child she carried beneath her heart for so long is birthed, taken, gone.

Behind her, the doors to the gym slide back, but no-one enters.

Teyla glances over her shoulder, halts.

John stands in the doorway. His posture is tense, his gaze uncertain. And in his hand is a cream-coloured sheet of paper.

She gave little thought to the letters after her team-mates' return. It was never the time, nor the place to speak of such things. John seemed the same as ever, and if she sometimes wondered at his careful distance, she knew him too well to expect more.

"I found your note." Even in the fading light, his cheeks are dusky and his eyes flick to her face, then drop away. "Did you mean it?"

"Did you mean all the others?"

Her question teeters in the silence, a precarious balance between evasion and admission.

"Yes."

"Then, yes," she tells him, choosing honesty. The admission will change little. They are accustomed to this pattern, familiar. Speaking it out loud will make no difference to how they behave.

If he even wishes change. Teyla is not sure John even wants to cross the chasm between want and have; desire is safer at a distance.

"Thank you," she says after a moment, looking away. "For admiri--"

Her words are silenced by his kiss, ardent.

The note flutters to the floor, bold black on pale paper.

_If you had spoken, it could have been._

- **fin** -


End file.
